You're absolutely right, Driverman2006. We cannot have any more front-end menus for any games that largely focus on the freedom and a city within a video game. It doesn't matter if it's a racing game, an action-adventure game, or any other game that includes a city. Deal with it by not including the front-end menu for such a game. As for games largely based on linearity, such as fighting games and of developers who focus more on quality and not quantity, it doesn't need to make an appear.

Maybe after a few more years, sometime between 5-10 years, many games will move to an experience that is built on an incredible story, but also with a great level of freedom.

Right now, only games with focuses on cities and worlds (not levels) should take part in no front-end menu. RPGs would make the next great choice since they love to tell the story and to leave such a big world for the player to venture in.

Thanks for your support, FutureVender! And welcome to the Driver and Ubisoft forums!

Another thing I love about D:PL over all the other Driver games is that it has vehicle customization. That's another standard for vehicle-related games nowadays. I wish Drivers 1-3 had that. That would've increased the replay value a lot too, as well as open-world structure.

These are the standards for the future of the Driver series:
-Open World Structure (meaning NO front-end menu)
-Vehicle customization (hopefully deeper than Midnight Club: Los Angele's)
-A money system (earning money from missions, side missions, etc that you can spend on parts for customization and ammo, and make it so that $999,999,999,999.00 is the maximum amount of money we can have all together, I hate how in D:PL you can never be a millionaire)

-All vehicles in the game operable (those that run on the road, rails, air, and water)

I haven't ever really cared about customisation. It feels more like add on that can be made if there's time and space.

I consider the on foot the most important aspect to improve. Smoother moving, shooting, climbing, swimming, ability to enter every building and enter and exit vehicles. Then giving all those abilities to AI that uses them well.

The name is FutureVenturer, not FutureVender. I didn't intend my name to sound like that of the character from Futurama. My name is supposed to describe something that is in the future and ventures (goes on an adventure) its world.

As for the rest of your post, I do agree that we need a ton of customization options for the vehicles in the game. However, whenever a vehicle gets too destroyed and you must abandon it, I hope that we can still get it out of a garage of yours, much like what DPL's garage system was like. It made it so that if you left a vehicle behind and it was a sweet ride, you wouldn't have to worry about it, as you could go back to a garage, fix it up, and take it out for a ride. Although we should have maybe a realistic way of storing vehicles, it would make sense to allow us to teleport that vehicle back and use it again. Or, if we can't do that, then you should be able to take pictures in the game. By doing this, you can take pictures of the city, the people, the weapons, and even the vehicles. If you've made a really sweet ride and are worried that you'll get it wrecked, you can take a picture before taking it for a ride and if you've lost the ride, you can go find another car like that, look at your picture of how it looked, and take that same design which it had. It would eliminate the frustration of losing a vehicle that meant so much to you. We should also be able to customize our weapons to a great extent, such that if we lose any, we can take a picture and use the same trick to make a similar weapon as before.

I don't know whether or not Reflections will do such a good job on watercraft or aircraft, so I'll say that the next game would be best off as a game with landcraft vehicles only, which would include anything from automobiles, to motorbikes, to scooters, to even trains as being operable.

The money system should work for you to gain as much as 9,999,999, I'd say because we probably wouldn't need any more money than that to buy everything in the game. If it turns out like this, then Reflections will be quite reasonable enough. And what good does it do to have around 10 or 100 million dollars still in your pocket after having bought everything in the game? Carrying lots of money with you would be silly. Maybe, regardless of anything, Reflections can make the game realistic enough that at some point in the game, people will try to steal money from anyone on the streets. Sometimes, it can be a pedestrian. Other times, it'll be you. If you're lucky enough, you'll be able to run after the person responsible and beat the hell out of him, forcing him to give you back your money. I've noticed that in GTA III there was a rating of Pickpocket, which was a description for Claude at how tough of a criminal he was. You are able to kill someone in a GTA, just to steal their money, but in the next Driver game, you should be able to just walk over to them and snatch their money. The same should go for any NPC (non-player character) or pedestrian in the game.

Sorry about calling you "FutureVender", FutureVenturer. I got mixed up.

I can't imagine why anyone would think vehicle customization is an "Add On". It certainly is NOT. Part of what makes driving games fun is that we can make our vehicles look the way we want them to look, and make them go REALLY REALLY fast. So vehicle customization is definetly a high priority for the Driver series.

Now, about aircraft, I think just one kind of plane and helicopter is all we need. This way we can see the cities from above. All automobiles, boats, and trains MUST be drivable in the future Driver games.

I don't really care what my vehicle or weapons act and look like as long as there's quite a bit of those available. No one else sees our cars and unmodified performance isn't bad at all.

If I choose bethween modified car or making AI smarter, I definetly take AI. If I choose bethween balanced driving-on foot and modified car, I take the gameplay. Modifying vehicles doesn't affect the core gameplay that much. It's cool, but just secondary. It is part of the fun, but minor part that won't save overall bad game.

Every wish here comes down to priorities. Driver 4 won't have everything we want so I suggest what I consider important now. After seeing the result I add more suggestion for the future. Now I want perfect core gameplay, not hashed plate of random ideas.

It's alright, Driverman2006. I forgive you.

You've made a great point, kalle90. The customization features are just secondary options and won't save a game from becoming bad. I think that the customization features should be one of the last things Reflections will need to focus on. After all, I'm tired of seeing terrible AI in a Driver game. The cops need a ton of real skills and tactics to use against taking you down or arresting you, both when driving and when on foot. And yes, improving the core gameplay as much as possible is more important than anything else. This means that the on-foot will need good basic on foot abilities and a good aiming system. The driving will need to feel realistic and differentiated for each vehicle, making the vehicles break and drive differently. A solid storyline is what Reflections hasn't yet been able to capture in any Driver game since the first one, so I'll say that this is another important feature to build upon.

In the end, I want all of the main and most important elements to be as incredible as almost every other big game that is coming out in the 7th generation and even for the secondary elements to feel impressive too. I don't think that the customization options will go as far as a game like Forza Motorsport, but I hope that we'll still see a great deal of it. Although Reflections should remain looking at the AI, graphics, basic on foot abilities, shooting & aiming, driving physics & damage, Film Director, and storyline of the game, it doesn't mean that they should just leave a lot of empty space unused for this next game. It would be such a big mistake for Reflections to do, so the next Driver game must capitalize on the primary & secondary elements of the game. If it only focuses on the primary elements, there's a chance that it'll end up too linear of a game, but if it focuses too much on the secondary elements, it could end up as a hugely non-linear game, yet with a ton of unbalanced elements that tend to make fans very disappointed and have the game fail at its many things that it sets out to do. Lets not have either of these things happen.

How about if the next game lets you store/mod vehicles, when you total it, its still in your garage in mint condition. This way modding cars isn't obsolete within minutes.

And the ability to have more than one version of a car in your garage would be nice

The thing I don't like about the vehicle customization is there isn't anything unique about it, same stuff seen in other games. And we didn't get turbos/superchargers any of that cool stuff

When I say unique, I mean a mod that would make your car pop up onto two wheels so you could squeeze through tight traffic, james bond type stuff, and really anything else

Here a question. How often do you replay the missions when you plug in a Driver game?

I'd say I rarely replay the missions. I rather have the freedom to go anywhere, start a chase at anytime, explore the map, etc, rather than having a strict list of timed checkpoints to reach. Not that some of the missions weren't good, but a majority of them were repetitive, and towards the end of each game, the difficulty ramped up to the point of frustration more than fun.

If I fail the mission, waiting for the game to reload back to the beginning just to repeat it all over again is not a lot of fun if the mission stinks.

Maybe some new way of presenting a mission, where you don't have to repeat the darn thing 100 times (the final Driver 1 and 2, 3 missions), but still make progress with no load screens. Instead of making missions more frustrating, they need to be more fun to get through, with less precision required compared to Stuntman for example(frustration).

Yes. Too many missions require knowing the path exactly or huge luck that enemy doesn't use the "wrong" tactics.

I hated the Calita chase mission where I almost instantly saw "oh no she's going to go that path again, I might just as well restart and hope she doesn't use that path then". I can't destroy her car or make it stop, civilian cars have the same linear lines always coming in front of me and not harming her at all and if I get bit too far it's game over. Horrible. There was like 3 different variants of that chase, one reasonable, one really hard and one impossible.


That's one reason why I would make cut scenes playable so story game would be more variable. Chase, getaway, on foot chase, on foot escape, fight, shootout, rescue... That way there wouldn't have to be chase lvl 1, lvl 2, lvl 3, lvl 50.

I play story once or twice, then I play the Take A Ride for 95% of the time and ocassionally some mini games, I wish there was more than 1-3 of variants of every mini game. I still play the entire story and individual missions rarely, though.

When I first get a game, I will usually play somewhere between 5 and 10 missions, loose interest then explore and cause cheat induced mayhem. I may never touch the mission side of the game again after that either.

I just want a game that plays out based on your actions, I know it'd be hard to do, I don't care if Driver ever does it. And it doesn't even have to be much of a story, if the world just changed based on your actions, that would be cool to me, I really play games to mess around, not trying to get too attached as I like leaving my house for hours at a time. Longer I stay away from home the better. And yet here I am..

Let me make it sound clear, PennySillin. This is not a time when sandbox gameplay has met its match. Currently, this is a growing sub-genre, but it has hardly ever been doing well, except for a few games, that including Driver (D1), the GTA franchise, Mafia, and Mercenaries. These are the titles which I believe deserve the best credit for moving the genre forward.

As far as I know, RPGs have only been the ones, at this point, to explore a direction in multiple paths through courses of actions in missions/quests. A good example of these games include Fable, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (1 & 2: The Sith Lords), and Mass Effect. Every other RPG is strictly linear and focuses on the RPG battle system as well as the world(s) surrounding it.

To expect a very soon sandbox title that will give you everything you've ever dreamed of about freedom is such an unrealistic wish, at this point. I try to be as realistic with my ideas as possible, so I will say that we won't see such sandbox titles until after about 2-4 years. As for cut scenes, we should have interactive ones at some points in the game. Shenmue 1 & 2, God of War, Resident Evil 4, Kingdom Hearts, and several other titles have had this feature, so I know it could be possible for a sandbox title (Shenmue is a sandbox title).

We likely will see missions that are largely linear, or the replayability of missions, which is not such an important task for players in a SBG (Sandbox game).

ActionDreamer, I'm pretty sure I said it would be hard to do. Obviously I know of your lack of imagination, so I forgive you.

And if rpg games are already doing this, what makes it so impossible for a "sandbox" game to do it? Because of cars and guns?

Example of a lousy mission: You start, two seconds later, "You failed". You restart. Repeat 100 times, till by some miracle of luck you finally get it, if you haven't given up entirely.

The experience becomes more about watching a "loading" screen to restart a ridiculously difficult mission, more than acutally playing to have fun. Challege the player, but don't p!ss them off if you want them to come back.

quote:

Originally posted by InsaneDriver06:
Example of a lousy mission: You start, two seconds later, "You failed". You restart. Repeat 100 times, till by some miracle of luck you finally get it, if you haven't given up entirely.

The experience becomes more about watching a "loading" screen to restart a ridiculously difficult mission, more than acutally playing to have fun. Challege the player, but don't p!ss them off if you want them to come back.

Im all with you. Though just making things easier shouldn't be the goal. Now most missions are easy or ok, but every now and then there's missions that requires perfect luck, nerves and skill. Just making them easier would make the game too easy and short, so something must replace them. Without saying it's clear that AI should be stable, fair and realistic instead of current complete idiot-precoded god rate. Then add few more different missions like on foot chases and proper shootouts.

Though now it feels hilarious imaging the mission failed after every other second But it isn't when Im holding the controller.


Actually, just removing the mission failed screen and making player start again would be huge help. In Halo1 and 2 player respawned instantly after death and I had no problem with it, I was instantly back in action. Halo3 loads after death for many seconds (Still screen so there's even nothing to watch) before player respawning which really irritates me. A lot more you could think.

quote:

Originally posted by PennySillin:
ActionDreamer, I'm pretty sure I said it would be hard to do. Obviously I know of your lack of imagination, so I forgive you.

And if rpg games are already doing this, what makes it so impossible for a "sandbox" game to do it? Because of cars and guns?

Excuse me, PennySillin, but you got my name wrong. It's not ActionDreamer, it's FutureVenturer.

Secondly, I don't have a lack of imagination. Sure I'm not a professional of coming up with ideas for video games, but you aren't either. I'm just trying to be more realistic, that's all. And I certainly don't want to ruin it for Reflections by telling them the things I want which may not even be possible.

As an answer to your question, I will say this. Currently, the majority of sandbox games have grown to only revolve around crime or as being a cop, which I'd say it very little effort for a developer who is trying to look into the genre and distinguish itself from Rockstar North. I know that GTA IV will definitely have cut scenes. If there was to be any game to be the first to offer no cut scenes, I'd say it would be a GTA game. Up until this point, no one has been able to outsmart Rockstar North. Reflections has been well known for its cut scenes and of making the majority of the Driver titles linear, not non-linear. Unless Reflections spends 3-4 years on the next game, I don't think that we'll see a game with no cut scenes. Also, on top of that, the team will finally need to through in a good story. Otherwise, having no cut scenes worse than having them, as they would help drive the narrative forward. And instead, Reflections can put its focus on making the loading times smaller than ever. Because many developers who've worked on multiple genres or just genres aside from RPGs don't know so much about it, I won't say that Reflections taking an approach to no cut scenes would come out successful. Maybe its team members will allow for cut scenes which allow you to make the choices yourself, but I doubt we'll see no cut scenes at all. I'd say these are the only options for Reflections at this point.

For the other games that have been done without cut scenes, they were the Half-Life games (by Valve) and Bioshock (by 2K Boston/2K Australia), but, of course, we're dealing with these being two of the best developers among the other few that are in the video game industry today.

Challenging, fun missions with plenty of variety that we haven't seen before. Creative missions beyond the typical formula we've seen a hundred times. Rather than restart the mission, you can elect to continue with free ride to take a breather, or jump right back into the mission. Not sure what the best approach would be honestly.

I think all of the Driver games are tight! I enjoyed each one no matter how bad the graphics were. In fact, you might think I'm wierd, but I don't care much about graphics!

Peace Out!

quote:

Originally posted by Gamechamp_123:
I think all of the Driver games are tight! I enjoyed each one no matter how bad the graphics were. In fact, you might think I'm wierd, but I don't care much about graphics!

Peace Out!

Gameplay over graphics is the way to go, as a game could look great but play like junk and what good would it be? True of many things.

Whenever I think about a game's attributes (graphics, gameplay, controls, replay value, sound, innovation, etc.), I don't think of any being the superior one. In all respects to gaming, or, to art, every attribute must be at a high level. Otherwise, a game can really feel sloppy and poor if one thing is the only thing it succeeds in, or even if all but one attribute is done excellent, with the one being terrible. For instance, if you had a game with incredible sound, gameplay, controls, and replay value, even innovation, but the worst looking graphics (a child's own drawings), which completely make the whole game look confusing, the game would be a big letdown. This is where criticism comes to mind. If a game does gameplay very well, but does the graphics poorly, you can see that it still has some very big disadvantages. Therefore, a game must balance out its attributes and make sure that each of them are at least good.

Driver: You Are The Wheelman is the last Driver game that I've played, but that was back a few months or several weeks. I've been away from playing my video games for a while now, with so many things going on. I do not know whether I'll play the next Driver game. If it delivers much better than DPL, I'll hope to give it a shot. However, I'm losing my interests in sequels, as they only tend to improve game and do not raise the bar for many new ideas. And while sequels usually can, in video games, improve over the original, they'll never be able to play a higher form of self-expression than that of the original game. Sequels are usually intended to continue a story, and that's the big picture, whereas, most of the other stuff isn't an entirely new form of art. By the end of 2008, I hope to give up playing sequels (I'll still be watching & reading about them to understand each franchise), as I find more interests in looking beyond that. This means that I'll have the chance to explore whole new games, both those very well known and even some very unknown ones. I will have a journey towards renting the most innovative and unique games ever to be released in the video game industry, sometime in 2009 (hopefully early). I want to be able to continue learning so much about video games and to enjoy them as well.

By some chance, if the next Driver game does deliver big, then I'll be happy enough to rent it (or maybe even buy it). Other than that, I don't feel that I'll go towards playing any more sequels after that. To understand this world better, people will, at most times, need to look past sequels, even though it may hurt at first.